Dem
47
GOP
53
It looked like it would happen over the weekend, but it actually took until Monday night. According to AAA, which is everyone's go-to for this information (well, AAA and GasBuddy), the national average for a price of regular unleaded gasoline has shot above $4/gallon. Compare that to one year ago, when it was $3.17/gallon. Or, perhaps more eye-opening, compare it to one MONTH ago, when it was... $2.98 a gallon.
On one hand, this news isn't as big as it seems; it is a product of human beings' predisposition toward round numbers. Given that it's a national average, it's not like there are hundreds or thousands of cities that all crossed the Rubicon at the same time, around 11:00 p.m. on Monday. Heck, in California—aka the Liberal Hellscape—$4/gallon was surpassed long ago, and now gas is above $5/gallon, and is edging closer to $6/gallon. (By the way, Z's students are furious.)
On the other hand, this is actually very big news. First, because crossing the $4/gallon national threshold led to front-page stories across the country. So, if anyone hadn't noticed what's going on at the pump, they've just gotten a big heads-up. Second, because prices are climbing by about 1½ cents a day, and are likely to keep doing so, in part because of the Iran mess, and in part because gas prices always go up in the spring and summer months. It is entirely possible that, by May, we will see $5/gallon. That would be very close to a record high of $5.01/gallon, set in 2022 when the pandemic began to recede, but supply chains were still screwed up.
The third reason it's big news is that diesel prices are shooting up at an even faster pace. Diesel is a little more prone to this, in part because the supply chains are a little more complex (due to environmental regulations) and in part because consumers of diesel tend to be something of a captive demographic. Joe and Josephine Sixpack can choose to drive less, ride bikes, take public transit, etc., if gas gets too expensive. By contrast, the grocery stores and Walmarts and Targets have no real choice but to move product around in their big diesel trucks, whether that diesel fuel is $1/gallon or $100/gallon. At the moment, diesel averages $5.45 a gallon nationwide, which is getting uncomfortably close to the record $5.81, also set in 2022. Of course, those businesses do not, by and large, eat the increased fuel costs—they pass them on to the consumer.
Oh, and there's yet another potential dynamic that could come into play. Big Petroleum doesn't much like it when oil drops below $60/barrel, because then their profits are severely curtailed. But they also don't much like it when oil rises above $90/barrel, because then people start finding alternatives to petroleum (like, say, buying an electric vehicle), and those alternatives can become permanent, thus permanently reducing demand. For that reason, despite the likely shortages due to the Strait of Hormuz being closed down, American producers are slowing production, and taking a "wait and see" approach. Depending on how well, or how poorly, their throttling tracks the market, that could also cause gas prices to rise.
It is also worth noting that the (apparent) effects of the Iran War are reverberating across the U.S. economy as a whole. The labor market is as bad as it has been in 6 years (in other words, since the height of the pandemic). Meanwhile, the stock market just had its worst quarter since 2022. As we have written many times, a president can't really fix a bad economy, but they sure can wreck a good one.
This is predictably having a very negative impact on Trump's approval ratings, and he's getting grim news on a daily basis on that front. To start with, he just hit record lows in two different polls. In the latest from The Economist/YouGov, he's down to 35% approval and 58% disapproval. In the latest from University of Massachusetts Amherst, he's down to 33% approval and 62% disapproval. As a reminder, the dreaded "Bush line" is 32% approval.
It is true that these results are worse than most other polls, but... not by a lot. In Nate Silver's aggregator, Trump is averaging 39.7% approval; that's the first time Silver's average has dropped below 40%. In CNN's aggregator, the average is 37%. In The Economist's aggregator, it's 36%.
And if you dig into the crosstabs, the news does not get any better. Trump is certainly being hurt by the Iran War and the resulting gas prices. But remember, Democrats almost universally disapproved of him before the war ever began. So, his slide has to be coming from somewhere else. And that somewhere else appears to be three key demographics. First, according to The Economist/YouGov poll, his net approval with Americans 65 and older has gone from a high of +5 in March of last year to -17 right now. That hurts, because they vote. According to that same poll, his net approval with Americans 18-29 has gone from a high of +9 in February of last year to -40 right now. These folks do not vote as reliably as Americans 65 and older, but still, a swing of 49 points is going to sting. Meanwhile, according to both polls, Trump's net approval with independents has cratered to -45. By comparison, at the height of Watergate, Richard Nixon's net approval with independents was -36. That's positively robust, as compared to the numbers Trump is getting right now.
Trump appears to have figured out that Iran is killing him, polling-wise. Or maybe his pollster, Tony Fabrizio, figured it out for him. In any event, the last couple of days have seen the following developments:
While we think that a ground invasion is still a realistic possibility, we also think someone must have made clear to Trump that it would be utterly disastrous for him politically. So, at least for the moment, it sure looks like he and his allies are paving the way for him to just declare victory and walk away from the whole Iran fiasco. (Z)